GIS

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

This Division of Planning & Community Development Department maintains geographically enabled databases documenting all the major components of the infrastructure and legally mandated management zones for the City of Norman. These databases include, but are not limited to: wastewater collection system, water distribution system, storm water collection system, zoning, Norman 2025 land use plan, city council wards, historic districts, recoupment districts, property ownership patterns, street centerlines, building footprints, paving, fences, trees, police beats, fire districts, sanitation routing, topography, hydrography, and digital aerial orthophotography. The primary purpose of this program is to provide decision and policy makers within the city information needed to effectively manage the city’s resources in a format that can be easily understood and visualized in a fashion that allows patterns and relationships to be discerned.

This program exists because the majority of the resources that a city must manage (sewer line, water lines, streets) and the services it must provide (water or trash service to a residence, calls for police or fire service) have a geographic component. Creating databases organized around geography allows the content to be modeled and visualized more effectively. The capacity to link data, which previously did not exist or was stored in unrelated tables, facilitates more creative and efficient problem solving and service delivery citywide. It also supports new requirements relating to GASB34 infrastructure accounting and NPDES regulations governing storm water collection systems.